Like they did it with Warcraft 3 before, Blizzard plans now to release the Art Tools for Starcraft 2. First an closed beta, or better a beta for exquisite peeps, the Art Tools are now an open beta. It requires 3d Studio Max, though.

Are you a talented 3D artist interested in creating completely new models, particles, animations, and more in the StarCraft II universe? If so, you’ll want to dive into our StarCraft II Art Tools open beta. This package includes plugins for 3ds Max, a large number of StarCraft II source art files, and complete documentation and tutorials to get you started.

Blizzard has used 3ds max as their ingame tool since diablo 1 or earlier, so it's unlikely they would ever make a plugin for another application for such a purpose. What they should have done is release the source.

Is it working properly or will we be bogged down by 10,000 bugs we'll be spending more time trying to get around them than actually being creative?

I only got WoL, profit or no?

Any review on the currently released BETA tools?

HKS reported several bugs with the beta tools that were not addressed, including the weird UI restriction in setting animations with frame counts lower than those set for existing animations.

However, the tools certainly work leagues better than NiN's old alpha.

There is an object or bone limit or something not present in NiN's tools. I think it's like 64 objects or something. The Onslaught Juggernaut won't export as-is, even though it works with the old tools.

The tool has some strange bugs with materials HKS encountered during the export of my Gahennas ships in which some materials had this weird green cubemap fog sort of thing going on where if you zoomed out or changed camera angle they would turn green. No idea what caused it.

Of course, the "tool" is just an exporter and not an importer, so you'll still need nintoxicated's tool if you want to bring in existing meshes to edit.

Since he doesn't do anything and I never pursued an sc2 project that is all I can recall him finding. There is likely to be a few dozen more bugs you'll find simply as a byproduct of making original content and not just lazily kitbashing everything like most people do.

Yep. Been out in the world looking for said "real life" but by the gods, all I found was eggshells, and hollow lives. Lambs with no blood, and empty baskets.

I now return, though incomplete, and slightly bruised. Shaken by the truth I beheld outside these walls. Perhaps, Mesk was right. My dreams, though immaterial, are the only treasure I can call my own. An infinite spring of life, welling inside of me, able to sustain forever. And the thirst is no more. The hunger satisfied.

TLDR: Nice to be back.

IskatuMesk wrote:HKS reported several bugs with the beta tools that were not addressed, including the weird UI restriction in setting animations with frame counts lower than those set for existing animations.

However, the tools certainly work leagues better than NiN's old alpha.

There is an object or bone limit or something not present in NiN's tools. I think it's like 64 objects or something. The Onslaught Juggernaut won't export as-is, even though it works with the old tools.

The tool has some strange bugs with materials HKS encountered during the export of my Gahennas ships in which some materials had this weird green cubemap fog sort of thing going on where if you zoomed out or changed camera angle they would turn green. No idea what caused it.

Of course, the "tool" is just an exporter and not an importer, so you'll still need nintoxicated's tool if you want to bring in existing meshes to edit.

Since he doesn't do anything and I never pursued an sc2 project that is all I can recall him finding. There is likely to be a few dozen more bugs you'll find simply as a byproduct of making original content and not just lazily kitbashing everything like most people do.

Maybe I should just hold off for now, and focus on conceptualizing then. If anything, how did it go with the WC3 tools? I suspect this time around, the end of this journey with Startools would roughly be the same with WC3 exporter, and I haven't got around to checking that one.

Do you think it wise to expect this tool will be at least 90% functional in the end, with just a few bugs in it? I hate it when a plugin bugs out and ruins days of work. It hammers down on you and eats at morale.

Wc3's tools were way more of a mess comparatively speaking. They didn't even support a proper version of 3ds max when they were released. Sc2's exporter is for max 2012, and it uses a bunch of hacky dll injection so it's probably not backwards/forwards compatable at all. Of course, don't expect them to ever release the source...

I think for most purposes the tools should function fine as long as you plan ahead with your animation sequence setup. I can't really predict beyond that because I haven't experimented fully with them and HKS only did a few experiments at my request (we have no active projects after all).

For particles, get familiar with max's particle system as unlike wc3, startools actually uses a real particle system and not some make believe hack (unlike sins of a solar empire that still, today, uses a particle system infinitely inferior to warcraft 3).

Depends, for the "essentials" it's okay as HotS-only stuff (that isn't added to WoL on patch 2.0) is mostly just HotS models and units. Fairly sure WoL got all HotS triggers that would matter for example.

In addition, for playing on the Arcade, there is now the "Spawning" feature which you can group up with a HotS player (must be leader I believe) to get all access of HotS stuff except HotS mapmaking, HotS campaign and you are forced to play terran on HotS melee. Thus, good enough for playing HotS maps from the Arcade at least.

As for the Art Tools themselves, I don't think they require HotS but don't take my word for that sentence.

Haven't gotten to it yet. I have a lot of excuses, but they're just excuses. Hehe

Lavvs, you guys have any news on the Bunker?

Ricky_Honejasi wrote:

GnaReffotsirk wrote:I only got WoL, profit or no?

Depends, for the "essentials" it's okay as HotS-only stuff (that isn't added to WoL on patch 2.0) is mostly just HotS models and units. Fairly sure WoL got all HotS triggers that would matter for example.

In addition, for playing on the Arcade, there is now the "Spawning" feature which you can group up with a HotS player (must be leader I believe) to get all access of HotS stuff except HotS mapmaking, HotS campaign and you are forced to play terran on HotS melee. Thus, good enough for playing HotS maps from the Arcade at least.

As for the Art Tools themselves, I don't think they require HotS but don't take my word for that sentence.

Wait, there are new editor related stuff for HotS that aren't there for WoL? Excluding models, I mean.

I'll wait for a Trio package from blizzard which would include LotV in the future, before buying anything. There ain't no sufficient reason for me to get HotS atm.

Currently creating WC2 maps, and Doom Levels. Just to get the blood pumping again.